Thursday, December 4, 2008

Happy Feet Friday

Virginia O’Brien was a drop-dead gorgeous singer who specialized in comic tunes (she appeared in several Red Skelton films in the ‘40’s). She was well known for her deadpan delivery, which she came across by accident when, during one of her first auditions, she had an attack of stage fright and sang her number with absolutely no facial expressions or movement at all (everybody thought she had done it on purpose, and they loved it, so it became her shtick). In today’s video, O’Brien sings what, at first, seems like a stock ballad, but then the lyrics get a little…homicidal.

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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 5, 2008 at 10:03 AM

    Maybe she was singing about a Democrat?

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  2. RebeccaHDecember 5, 2008 at 10:40 AM

    Ach! I kept waiting for her to tell him she poisoned his coffee, or at the very least to strangle him with her apron strings. But that's just me.

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  3. AnonymousDecember 5, 2008 at 3:46 PM

    I loved her in 'Big Store' too.

    Good to hear she went out big:

    "In the 1980s the still youthful beauty toured the country in a one-woman show and recorded a live album at the famed Masquers Club entitled, "A Salute to the Great MGM Musicals". One of her last significant stage appearances came in 1984 as Parthy Ann in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera's production of "Showboat", with Alan Young."

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0639877/bio

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  4. PacoDecember 5, 2008 at 11:37 PM

    Bruce: Good for her! And thanks for the info (for some reason I was under the mistaken impression that she had died fairly young, but it looks like she lived into her '80's).

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  5. Mercurius AulicusDecember 6, 2008 at 5:00 AM

    For another display of marital love see ( http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=M7mr7CK7zEk ). Nothing says "I love you" more than asking your wife to hold bullet proof glass in front of her face while you fire rifle shoots into it.

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  6. PacoDecember 7, 2008 at 12:51 AM

    MCB: Er, yes. I suppose "love" is one word that could be used to describe that.

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  7. AnonymousDecember 26, 2008 at 12:24 AM

    She is my absolute favourite. MGM totally under used her. She is so stunning and had potential to do more than deadpan. To me Ginny, Hedy Lamarr, and Vivien Leigh are three of the most beautiful women to grace the screen. She is one of the few people I wish I could have met.

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